Confident Conscious Communication For Leaders {Live}

Confident communication is not just about body language and learning to speak well. It's about speaking from the heart, with your values in front. In this live recording of an Insight Timer live, Nik teaches you how to speak with clarity, calm, and conviction. If you want to learn to express yourself authentically, build trust, and lead conversations that reflect your values, even in high-pressure situations you're in the right place. This talk begins with a short awareness practice, followed by a discussion on confident communication as it adheres to Conscious Leadership principles. You’ll leave with simple, powerful tools to become a confident, conscious communicator in your leadership position.

Transcript

The ego is really the one who needs confidence,

Because the ego either feels confident or not confident.

Soul or your heart,

It doesn't have those barriers,

It just has connection.

So you've joined me,

I'm Nic Chung,

I'm a conscious leadership coach and mentor for those of you who want to create more impact with the leadership role that you have.

You know that your leadership role isn't just isolated to achieving KPIs with your team,

You're here to create a real difference in the workplace and I'm here to help you with that.

So today we're talking about the confident communicator and we're going to spend about 25 to 30 minutes together and the first five minutes we're going to connect and ground,

Doing a wee meditation of sorts.

Then we'll do about 15 minutes of teaching and I'll share three conscious communication pillars and then we're going to have about five to ten minutes at the end for some journaling or some Q&A's.

So if you don't already,

Grab a pen and a notebook for that part at the end.

So let's dive into the grounding part.

If it's safe to do so,

Please close down your eyes,

Pop your hands somewhere nice and comfortable and if you have your legs crossed on a seat,

Just uncross them and ground them on the floor and connect into the breath.

Drop into the body,

Drop into the breath and drop into the present moment.

If your breath is perhaps shallow or fast and you think maybe I'd like to change that,

Perhaps consider taking longer,

Deeper,

Fuller breaths and we use the breath as a way to connect into the body and a way to drop into the present moment.

Feeling all of your energy,

All of your attention on the breath and being here right now.

And as we connect into the breath,

We can also connect in deeper into the body and notice if there's any tension,

Any strain,

Any holding of the body.

Perhaps your shoulders need to drop,

Perhaps your neck to loosen,

Perhaps your tongue needs to relax in your mouth,

Perhaps your jaw needs a wiggle.

Do a little body scan quickly and anything that has come to your attention that is not in a relaxed state,

With the breath breathing in creating space,

With the breath out letting go.

And we connect breath with body,

Bringing us into the present moment,

Grounding us here,

Bringing our attention to here and now and calming the nervous system,

Allowing us to have more clarity,

More confidence,

More groundedness.

And we're going to activate a specific area now,

The heart.

A seat for heart-to-heart communication.

So bring your attention to the area around the heart and ask,

How does my heart feel?

And if it feels a bit tight around the chest,

If it feels a bit stiff,

Again using the breath,

Breathing in,

Creating space,

Breathing out,

Loosening and letting go,

Opening up that area of the heart.

And you can imagine that your heart has an energy field,

Of which it does,

An electromagnetic field,

That is the biggest in the whole body,

Bigger than the brain.

And I want you to tap into that field of the heart,

Feel it pulsating,

In time with the heartbeat.

And now imagine that you are with each breath expanding the heart's energy field,

Breathing in,

Creating space,

Breathing out,

Expanding the heart's energy field.

And lastly you can imagine that these beams or lights or waves of energy connect your heart to other people's hearts.

Heart-to-heart communication.

And it's not a forced connection,

It's an invitation.

So open up your field,

Invite heart-to-heart communication,

Just by you being the model of that now.

Breathing in,

Creating space,

Breathing out,

Connection.

And bringing yourself back into your body,

Letting that heart area remain open.

And when you're ready,

Slowly opening your eyes.

How does your heart feel after that?

How do you feel in terms of your presence?

Are you completely here?

These are a few of the things that we'll talk about soon,

In terms of how to be a confident communicator.

So it wasn't just a fluffy meditation,

For the sake of a fluffy meditation.

It had a purpose and that purpose is to bring you into presence,

And to bring you into that heart space where you can connect with people heart-to-heart.

And we'll talk about this soon.

So what we're really talking about when we talk about confident communication is that it's not loud,

It's not dominant,

It's not trying to talk over people and be heard.

It can be clear,

It can be calm,

It can be aligned,

And it actually doesn't even need to come through your words.

Although today we will talk about that more.

Remember that communication is not only through language,

It's also your presence.

We talked more about this in last week's talk about energy.

I've actually recorded that,

So if you want to go and listen to it,

You can follow me and go and hear it in one of the recordings in SightTimer.

So communication is your presence,

It's also your body language,

And of course it is also your words.

So I want you to think of a time when you didn't speak up,

Or you thought you weren't heard.

What was the cost of that for you?

And how did that affect your confidence to communicate what it is that you wanted to do?

And now I want you to think of a time when you calmly,

In integrity,

Shifted a conversation.

How did that feel for you?

So you can see the power of confident communication,

Right?

You can see that if you can get what it is that you want to express across in a really calm way,

Then it's really going to help you in your leadership role and it's going to help you shift the tides in your workplace.

So let's talk about the three pillars of confident communication.

The first one is presence,

Hence why we did the grounding exercise at the start.

It was all about bringing you into the present moment,

And the breath and the body are really quick ways for you to come here right now.

When we talk about presence in communication,

It's a very powerful thing.

So I want you to,

For a moment,

Imagine when you have been talking to someone and you know they're distracted,

Right?

They're trying to tell you something and you know they're distracted and their attention really isn't on you.

It makes you feel,

Or at least it makes me feel,

And drop me hearts if this resonates with you too,

For me it makes me feel that I'm not really heard,

I'm not really valued,

They've got something else on their mind and I'm just a bit past of their communication.

I see that people are resonating with that.

And so you as a leader,

Your presence,

Your ability to be right here right now in the moment with whoever is that you're talking with or communicating with,

Remember communication doesn't have to be just your words,

Is a really powerful way to make people feel valued,

Feel heard and again it doesn't have to come through your words.

It's all about where your attention is,

Your attention and your energy.

So presence is one of the pillars of confident communication that aligns for people like us who are conscious leaders,

Right?

Because I could talk a lot about other ways of being confident communicators in terms of your body language,

But for conscious leaders,

Those of you who want to make positive change in your workplace,

Who are here to do something bigger than just achieve your KPIs,

Presence is a really important part of communicating well.

So we need to do practices like we did before,

Which is firstly calm down the nervous system,

Because stress tends to take you out of the present moment,

Because stress is caused by either worrying about the future or worrying about the past,

It's not present.

And we need to look at a way that we can activate your energy or your field of presence.

Today we did that from the heart,

We've talked about that a little bit more in last week's live and as I said there is a recording so you can go and catch that.

And so when we have a calm nervous system,

We can access what I call the three C's and the three C's are clarity,

Curiosity and compassion.

Let's go through each of those separately,

Okay.

So once we have calmed the nervous system,

We're able to access the three C's.

Clarity is clarity on your why,

Clarity on your values and clarity on you what you want to say.

Remember that when we're communicating,

Especially with words,

Less is more.

We've all probably been in a meeting before where there's someone who just wants to talk for the sake of hearing their own voice and I don't know about you,

But for me I tend to tune out to that person and anytime they have something that perhaps is even useful,

I kind of tune out.

I have to really make an effort to keep listening to them.

But if you're the sort of person who doesn't have to do that,

Who can talk when it is important and talk when it's needed,

You're going to have people want to listen to what you have to say because everything that you have to say is valuable.

So clarity gives you clarity on your why,

Why are you here doing what you're doing,

Clarity on your values which we'll talk about a little bit later in one of the other pillars and clarity on what it is that you want to say.

Don't be fluffy with your words,

Get clear on what it is that you want to say and say that.

And one of the best ways to access clarity is when we're in a calm state because you can imagine the mind when we're not,

When we're stressed we're thinking about a million things at once.

Our clarity of what it is that we want to say is going to be a little bit jumbled.

So clarity is the first C.

The second C is curiosity.

Again the presence exercise that we did at the start allowed us to drop into this heartfelt space and there was a reason for that and of course it's going to tie into compassion which is the other C but also because it drops us out of our ego.

Now our ego is usually the one who isn't curious in a conversation.

Our ego is the one who would like to be defensive or wants to get their point across.

It's look at me energy and remember that confident communication doesn't need to be this loud display.

So when we are able to calm the nervous system down and we get to connect into the heart space which is what I invited you to do right at the beginning of this chat.

We can access curiosity and curiosity often comes from being out of the ego because the ego has its own agenda.

The ego wants to be right,

The ego wants to stay the same but curiosity is the invitation to change.

And curiosity for you as a leader will help you understand people better because if you get say for example pushback on anything that you're communicating to your people you can be genuinely curious and ask more questions to try to understand their point of view.

So be curious in conversations with others especially with those you don't agree with.

So the flip side of that is with more curiosity comes more clarity right so we're coming back to the other sea.

So the more questions we ask because that is ignited by the curiosity of why is it that someone believes this thing or thinks about things in this way.

We get more clarity and we get more clarity within ourselves about what it is that we want to do or we want to communicate.

So curiosity works in two ways.

It allows us to understand the other better,

It allows us to understand ourselves better and so we then get more clarity right.

So this is why those two C's are together clarity and curiosity.

And as I said curiosity comes from that kind of more of the ego-less space through the heart activation.

And so the last C is compassion.

As a conscious communicator,

As a conscious leader we want to speak with kindness.

Even if we're not agreeing with what the other person is saying we still get to speak with kindness.

And we can speak with kindness when we get the ego out of the way,

When we're having heart-to-heart connection,

When we're being more curious,

When we've got more clarity.

So this is probably the most important of all the communication principles because compassion is also not only for others but also for yourself.

So if you can lead with your heart you avoid this egoic fear communication and that egoic fear communication is more of that defensive communication that might come up if you are challenged.

And also if you are coming from a place of compassion and kindness,

Speaking with kindness,

You are less likely to activate egoic fears in others which then activates their defensiveness,

Their want to knuckle down on what they're saying,

Their wants to not get curious.

You are less likely to activate that.

So what does that mean in terms of your leadership,

In terms of your conscious leadership and wanting to change your workplace culture or change your workplace to a more empowering positive one?

It means that you're less likely to create unnecessary conflict and challenge when you are trying to introduce change.

And I say less because it's still likely that you're going to see some,

But you're going to find less.

And even if you do and you are in confrontation,

If you can maintain your compassion it's going to affect you less.

So remember compassion is also for yourself.

With compassion we also protect our own heart because we often think of compassion as like just giving to others,

But when we are in a compassionate state we protect our own heart because no matter what someone brings to us it can't hurt us because we're coming from a heart space.

And this is a practice.

So we are looking at the three pillars of confident communication in alignment with conscious leadership principles.

And we've talked about presence,

We've talked about the three C's clarity,

Curiosity and compassion which all intertwine with each other.

And the last one is alignment.

So alignment is when your words reflect your values,

Your beliefs,

Your mission.

And this is why we started with the first pillar which was clarity.

Remember why you're here.

Remember what your values are.

Remember what it is that you want to create.

And get into alignment with that when you are speaking.

So when your words reflect your values,

You build trust.

When you are living what it is that you say that you want to create,

You build trust.

And when your thoughts and your words and your actions marry up to say the mission that you are on to create something good in the world through your workplace,

You're in integrity.

This is the definition of integrity.

So the last pillar of conscious confident communication is alignment.

And this ties back into the first pillar which was clarity.

So we've got clarity as one pillar,

The three C's as the second pillar and alignment as the third pillar.

And if you can get these three pillars really strong in you and you start to speak with these as your foundation,

You are going to be able to be more clear,

More direct,

More compassionate,

More kind and more in alignment with your own truth and more powerful with what it is that you want to say.

So have we got those?

Perhaps you want to write those down.

And if you want a point of reflection for that,

Ask yourself which of these three pillars do I need to strengthen the most?

Which of those are lacking for me or maybe just not as strong?

This is the fun thing about personal growth as we get to be really deeply honest with ourselves.

We get to move away from all the other like egoic bullshit I call it and we just get to be truthful with ourselves.

So ask yourself which of these three do I want to strengthen or which of these three is my weakest point or needs the most work?

And whatever one that is for you today,

Go about the rest of your day in your workplace and try to work on that one thing.

Work on that one thing to take in to the rest of your week perhaps.

And if it's presence,

Try to be more present with your conversations.

If it's the three C's,

Maybe there's one of those C's.

I kind of snuck in three,

Probably could have been five pillars.

One of the three C's,

Choose one of those three C's to work on.

Or maybe it's alignment and you want to make sure that what it is that you're saying is reflective of what it is that you say that you do or say that you want to do.

So alignment is also really about being the conscious leader who practices what it is that they preach.

So this is your practice for today and this is something that I invite you to do is have some self-reflection.

So don't just go away from today and say,

That was nice to hear.

Practice it.

So you might want to think about what's one conversation this week where I can show up as a more confident or a more present or a more compassionate or a more aligned communicator.

Perhaps there's a particular person in your workplace where you find that quite hard to do or to be.

What I always invite my clients to do is practice it with something smaller first.

So if there's someone who particularly riles you and you can't seem to get your words out or you seem to lose that compassion for,

Practice on people that are really easy for you,

Who you find quite friendly and not threatening to your ego.

Remember it's all about your ego.

So practice on them first and then gain that real-life feedback of how good it feels for you to do that.

And then work your way up to harder and harder people until you're eventually having this conversation with that person that perhaps you have found it difficult in the past to communicate with well.

So just remember you don't need to be a big,

Loud,

Showy communicator.

That's not confidence.

That's maybe faking it.

It's more about your presence.

It's more about your energy.

And the way that you communicate,

As I said right at the beginning,

Doesn't even need to be with your words.

And so we take it back right to how we started.

Start with calming yourself down,

Your nervous system.

Start with being present in this moment now and then start with expanding and having this heart-to-heart feeling of communication.

And when we do that we take away the ego.

We take away our own and we invite the other one to take away their ego.

And so we're more likely to have conversations that are fruitful for both parties than if we were to speak from our own ego.

So if you're not following me over on Insight Timer,

Please do.

I have a bunch of resources for leaders like you who want to create a more positive,

Empowering workplace.

Whether it is that you're self-employed or you run your own business or whether it is that you work in a traditional organizational business.

There are things there for you.

So there are talks,

There are recordings of my last talks,

Meditations to help you out.

And of course I am here live every single week from now.

So if you want to join me,

Go and look at my events because I have the weekly lives up there and I'm on the same time next week.

So if you really loved it,

I'd love for you to come and join me.

Come in and learn more about conscious leadership,

About how to create more positivity in the world through your workplace.

I honestly think that leaders have this amazing opportunity to change the world.

And you don't have to be like a leader of a huge organization.

You don't even need to have the title of leader,

You just have the desire to lead.

And when we have more people like you who are creating beautiful spaces for people to be in,

We can change the world from the inside out.

And this is why I do what I do,

Is to hopefully help you to be that kind of leader who can create change from the inside out.

And we start with ourselves always and we bring that out to the workplaces that we are in.

We bring that out to our friends and our family and that has a ripple effect that can really change the state of the world.

And I don't know about you but I feel like we really need that right now.

How do you strengthen your presence Nick?

I did a whole live about that last week.

So if you go on my Insight Timer and you look at my latest live recording,

You can learn about all of that.

You are clear lots to think about.

I am so glad and I'd love to hear more about how this goes for you in terms of gaining more confidence.

And you know we didn't even really talk about confidence,

Aren't I sneaky?

It was really about changing your presence and changing what is happening on the inside so that you can connect on a heart-to-heart way.

We don't need confidence that way because we're starting to connect soul to soul.

I like to say that we have a deeper connection than just our egos.

The ego is really the one who needs confidence.

Because the ego either feels confident or not confident.

Soul or your heart,

It doesn't have those barriers.

It just has connection.

So we didn't even really talk about confidence but thanks for coming for that because you learned something deeper.

Yes,

Exactly,

We are all potential leaders change agents,

Exactly.

The only thing is we just have to choose and you've obviously,

60 of you are here,

You've chosen to be a leader and I thank you for that.

Have a beautiful rest of your day,

A beautiful rest of your week.

I'll catch you next week.

Bye for now.